Chintakayala Ravi - Movie review

Just watched chintakayala ravi. In simple words, this is a typical venky film. It's a routine film with good comedy. The audio wasn't an instant success, but the songs looked a lot better on screen.

Most of the film is shot in the US, almost the entire first half and half of the second half. The first half of the film is pretty good with nice comedy. The only real emotional/sentimental scenes are in the last 15 minutes of the first half. All the three songs are pretty good. They are not different from the usual venky style songs.

The second half of the movie moves at a fast pace initially and all the remaining 3 songs are over within the first 45 minutes. The last 30 minutes moves to India and is pretty predictable, but not as heavy as you would imagine. Overall, the second half is good too.

I somehow don't digg venky's get up so much. But on the whole, its a tailor made film for Venky and he is as usual at ease. Anushka and Mamata Mohandas are good. Jr.NTR's guest appearance is okay. He looked very good, and its nice to see venky and Jr.NTR on the screen together. Overall, chintakayala ravi is not a great movie, but it's a timepass movie, definitely worth a watch.

Tina Fey - Sarah Palin, CNN compares

CNN compares Tina Fey parody to real Palin interview

Lipstick on a Pig

Looks like party is over for Sarah Palin.

She got Cliff notes training in foreign affairs for two days. Then she showed up for interview with Katie Couric.

And here's a good Q by Katie and Sarah's response to that..

COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Here's the youtube video



Can anybody pls translate Sarah's response into comprehensible English.
WTF is she talking about. In a way, Tina Fey job is very easy on SNL. Just talk like palin, you look like a dumbwit with out a clue.

We had enough of dumb people in White House. Please America, vote for Obama. He might not be flawless, but Obama-Biden is better than this McCain and Palin ticket.

Courtesty: Good Commentatory by Fareed Zakaria on Sarah Palin.

Peace.

Wall St, FUBAR ! 2

Now that the dust is settling (hopefully) and capitol hill is busy in finalizing the mother of all bailouts, I'll try to explore the causes for the crisis.

As I see it, these're the causes.

Insanely low interest rates from 2004 to 2006
Sub prime Lending
Predatory Lending
Derivatives
Lack of Regulation

and the Housing bubble burst.

Low Interest Rates
Post 9/11 Fed decreased the rate consistently. And from Jun '03 to Jun'04 the rate is 1%. Alan Greenspan advocated that rate cut would help the Housing. But too much cash flow to bankers made'em look out for more people to lend their easy money.

Sub prime Lending
Sub prime is jargon for people with bad or avg credit history. Usually this group wouldn't be eligible for housing loans. But as there is too much money to lend, realtors and mortgage bankers lend the money to this group.

A couple making 75G per year bought a 450G home without a down payment in SoCal. No income verification! How is this possible? Here comes the different types of Mortgage Products. ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) is one of them. With this kinda mortgage, lenders can pick their payments for the first 3 years. Obviously people paid interest only for the first 3 years. And then the Bankers used all the Predatory Lending practices.

Predatory Lending
So Bankers convinced this public that they can refi or sell their house after 3 years if they can't afford the payment. But apparently they're not informed that they can't refi the home before 3 years. So after 3 years the teaser rates ended and the real payments kicked in. As many people didn't pay any Principal in the first 3 years, you can imagine how much the monthly payments would go up. Now this public couldn't get their homes refinanced coz of the credit crunch, new lending standards and the phenomenal loss of house values. Even though the borrowers are really foolish, Mortgage lenders had intentionally hidden these details in their paper work.

Derivatives
As there is risk in all the sub prime loans, these loans we're sliced and repackaged as Derivatives ans sold all over the world. this reduces the risk to lending firm. The problem here is that no one really knows, which toxic loan effects a derivative. When Fed was trying to convince Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley AIG, they couldn't figure out how many toxic derivatives are in AIG books and how they would be affected.
And they backed out. Warren Buffer once called'em Weapons of Mass Destruction. Here's a pic which shows how loans are packaged into Derivatives. (Courtesy wikipedia)

These Derivatives are the main reason for Bankruptcy of walls st firms. As the housing foreclosures are increasing, these derivatives are losing their value. Panic on the wall st brought down the share value. It's just another illustration of Domino effect.

Lack of Regulation
Every year Wall st contributes millions of dollars to the both parties. In return they get no regulation or regulation of no use. This is the Free Market capitalism at it's best. When the street is making profit, they lobbied for lower taxes on Capital gains and got the 15% tax rate and tax cuts. Now they got the bail outs. AIG is just an insurance company. But it got involved into Derivatives trading and insurance. Reason, no regulation.

Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Bros got 180 Mil in compensation last year. CEOs of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae got the golden parachutes on their compensation package already. Thank God, Fed fired'em already and the chances that they'll get any severance package are very low. I saw Henry Paulson's and Bloomberg's take on CEO pay on Meet the Press this morning. watch it here

Like all good things, Housing Bubble came to an end in 2007. Home Prices're in Free fall mode. Bankruptcy of sub prime mortgage companies signaled the incoming financial storm. Apparently we saw that very late.

Some one on wikipedia, put all this mess into a good pic.


Peace.

Wall St, FUBAR !

What a week!

Where to start! Sunday night Lehman brothers filed chapter 11. Feds didn't bail out this time (?!). AIG bailed out by Feds. Meryl Lynch is part of BofA now. And then Dow Jones lost so many points and again rallied at the same pace. Everything which Americans thought risk-free is at risk now.

Banks, Money Market funds. (could you imagine that few money market share values went below $1.) I can't believe my bank Wachovia anymore.

Bail outs Season
Bail outs. USA is now the most socialist economy in the world.
Let's see the numbers
Bear Sterns $29B
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae $200B
AIG $89B

and as I write this Bush and his team are pitching $700B bailout plan to the congress.
The total tab $1.018 Trillion. Yes, that's 12 zeroes fellas.

and 700B is a very rosy estimate. God knows how much more money Fed is gonna put in. And Detroit auto companies are in line for their Bail out.

My first Question. Where's all this money coming from? Our economy is in deficit of $407 Billion. And the National Debt $10.6 trillion. See this video Money as Debt. As we see, USA economy isn't fundamentally strong.

Henry Paulson, the treasury secretary is leading the effort and he is pulling all the stops to face this crisis. He's doing a good job. In a way I can't oppose these bail outs, coz otherwise the whole economy might tumble down.

But again rich corporations were not held accountable for this mess. Imagine you or me, abusing our credit cards on big screen TVs, shopping, bad mortgages and file for bankruptcy. Would the Feds come for your resuce? F NO!!. But corporations did that and yes Fed rescued'em.

Interesting point here. SEC banned shorting of Financial stocks for 3 weeks. For the beginners, shorting is a kinda trading in which you profit if the stock price goes down. But wall st made billions in the last decade in shorting with their hedge funds. Isn't it ironical that the same companies destroyed so many companies with their shorting techniques.

It's not 'Surge' which is working in Iraq. It's the money US govt is giving to Shiite militants to stop attacks. And Dems VP candidate Joe Biden is putting a bill in Congress asking for 1 Billion aid to Georgia. Are they outta their F'in mind. How in this world are we gonna send aid when our economy itself is in direness.

US Govt doesn't have money to upgrade infrastructure, schools, health care in USA. Could you believe that FAA is still using 50 year old Radar based navigation for civilian flights in USA. FAA can't afford 150 Billions budget to upgrade it to GPS system. And we had already spent $580 Billions in Iraq war.

Now imagine John McCain being elected in November. McCain has been big backer of Deregulation bills until last tuesday. Suddenly, he's asking for more regulation of Wall st now. So if McCain goes to White house, he's gonna ask Social Security privatization. And medicaid, your retirement everything is at risk. As I see it, we're not even at the end of crisis. This is just the beginning !

And I've to use a line from Bill Maher
"Please don't call this crisis as Market correction, it's a catastrofuck."

to be contd...